


glissando

by Victoryindeath2



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [306]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Beren has been gone for like five years and Daeron is still afraid of his return, Daeron sneaks around Doriath like the little bish he is, Luthien does not deserve his creepiness, my file for this fic when writing it was entitled dumb Daeron, never fear, someone vibe check him please, the Daeron/Luthien thing is extremely unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26743426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Victoryindeath2/pseuds/Victoryindeath2
Summary: In which Daeron exercises the full force of his cunning, and dares to approach even Melian herself.
Relationships: Daeron/Lúthien Tinúviel
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [306]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	glissando

Daeron steps through double doors onto the tiles of the interior patio of Thingol’s hacienda and finds Thingol’s wife exactly where he hoped she would be. Melian rests straight-backed on a cushioned stool, sheltered from the warm winter sun by a copper overhang of generous roof. She has a basket of blue, purple, and gold embroidery silks at her slippered feet, but her eyes are closed and her hands, motionless and slender, rest in her lap atop a neatly folded square of white fabric.

A lovely picture. She gathers color around her as though she were the lattice of the royal Chinese garden Daeron has heard her mention and yet—and yet Daeron prefers the starry sky as it lives and breathes in her daughter Luthien.

The courtyard is empty save for scattered potted plants, sentinel fruit trees along the edges, and one unique tree at the center. It is an old creature, this mesa oak, with a thick trunk split into two bodies near its roots, and its branches are leaf-full even now, flung out in eternal dance, connecting north to south, east to west.

 _C’est le centre du monde,_ Daeron used to tell Luthien when she was a barefoot girl and liked to climb under sun and moon. Back when her delicate nose was not turned by the wind of the wanderer, her ears not deceived by the false song of a common, dark-eyed junco.

 _Il le doit être toujours_ , he tells himself now. _I will make sure of that_.

Daeron has, he finds it not prideful to say, patience, discernment, and better talents than many men.

He is no wild fiddler but an artist, one who takes care in the delicacy of his touch and the precision with which he plays each note exactly as he (or another) has written.

Now, moving so that he stands just under one of the many arches linking the patio around, he lifts his violin to his chin and threads the air with music.

Melian does not sleep—not in the open, no, she remains ever watchful there, quiet and cool—so she must listen.

Perhaps she smiles to hear the sweet, melancholy notes. Luthien would.

Daeron very carefully does not look. He plays, he gazes off into the distance, and he waits.

He has lived in Thingol’s house a long time, and he knows the worth of Melian’s knowledge, the worth of her observations.

-

Haleth is back, and with her, the occasional frosty morning. Daeron, ever wary of the state of his long fingers, dons fur-lined gloves if he must step out of doors before the sun makes its appearance.

There are many new souls in Doriath now, and that means growth in fear, hope, and grudges.

He steps toward the stables, because Wister will be there no doubt, overseeing Haleth’s interest in their horses and near future.

A dependable man that, amiable and hard-working, not very good at cards but loyal so as to never surrender any words his battleax leader does not want him to.

However, Daeron is a musician—a caesura in conversation is just as meaningful as one in song.

Listen, count, remember. Watch.

(How does the man hold his bow, while he changes its placement? Where does he rest it at last, on the fingerboard or the bridge, or somewhere in between?)

“It is good to see you all returned safely,” Daeron says, poking his head into a neatly organized tack room.

Wister glances briefly up from the damaged saddle that he has hung over a repair rack. “Thanks,” he replies, “but don’t stay and pester me with small talk—I’ve a long day ahead of me and more than a handful of work.”

Wister’s focus returns to the saddle—the cinch is worn almost clean through. Deadly, if not replaced.

“I would not dream of being a bother.”

Wister, normally polite if reticent, must have reason for being a touch waspish. He may be weary from the cattle run that extended in length for unexpected reasons, he may be anxious for or because of the thralls that Haleth has taken under her strong right wing—or he may be concerned that in talking to Daeron he will let something escape from his tongue that Haleth would not approve of.

Stepping across the well-swept floorboards, Daeron feigns some curiosity over hanging reins—but he does not fail to notice Wister sneak a longing look at the sight of the steaming porcelain mug cupped between Daeron’s gloves.

Everyone has their weaknesses, more or less, and Daeron discovered two years ago that of Haleth’s man. This coffee is not bunkhouse coffee, not trail coffee, but only the best imported stuff that Thingol can buy. Daeron doubts that Wister could explain the difference, but he certainly tastes it.

Thingol’s spy turns to go, turns the key in his instrument.

“ _Mon Dieu_ , I could use a good smoke.”

-

Thingol does not have to say more than a few words.

“They are hers,” he speaks to Daeron bluntly in Spanish, kicking his boot against a black-and-ash log wedged between the grates of the study’s stone fireplace. Something sparks—the flames are not quite extinguished. “Hers, unless they ask to be mine. Would I want them near in either case?”

Daeron is not merely a translator, not only a messenger.

He stands in the center of the room, relaxed yet respectful, surrounded by dark leather books and black acacia bookshelves, and delays his exit to see if Thingol has more explicit commands.

(One day, he dares to think anywhere but in Thingol’s presence, one day he might stand just here, on the red woven rug, waiting for the answer he has worked towards year after year.)

Thingol says nothing further but sits at his desk and begins to scratch heavily on thick parchment with a quill and ink.

After a moment, Daeron turns and peers into the gloom of evening, just past window glass and lanterns. He cannot see to the barns, not even to the long low building where Haleth has quartered her people. She does not care for him, but then she cares for few.

A faint wordless song drifts in from somewhere in the hallway—it comes nearer and nearer, gentle and light-footed as its mistress.

Daeron suppresses a warm shudder, thinking of that _ange doux_ , her soft lips too pure for the likes of nondescript vagrants, of futureless wild things with no friends and no family to speak of.

The song softens as if into sleep, just outside the door, and in a moment, Luthien will slip inside the study, to lay her head on Thingol’s knee, or perhaps to pursue her interest in the welfare of the newcomers.

Daeron will once again have to see the slim shoulders guarded so ill by a light robe, the one with the pale blue flowers stitched therein. She will smell of flowers too. This will be a gift and a trial both, for it is not—not quite—time to ask for his dearest desire.

A steady breath, and Thingol folds the paper he has made notes on, crackling it with two lines—and Luthien does not enter.

The songbird flits away with some new thought or purpose, leaving Daeron a little more hollow, a little more like a dull forest creature waiting on the edge of spring, looking for food and blossom when the trees have scarcely begun to bud.

Or maybe he is the traveler in the desert, pursuing a mirage.

No. His oasis is real, and the water there shall be all the sweeter for his patience and pursuit.

“Give me two days, Señor, and I shall have the answer to your question.”

In the depthless well of no-moon night outside, a single hated face hovers, open and young, betrayed and betraying.

Daeron has his own inquiries to make.

-

“Bonjour.”

Daeron says the word out of force of habit and general politeness, not because he expects to stir up a conversation of any length with the native woman passing him by.

Haleth only dips her head underneath her leather hat, but Daeron can still see her dark stone eyes, for she is taller than he. There is no real welcome there.

She stalks away from him, gripping a wood-carved grooming kit in her right hand. Her canvas coat is unable to conceal, or perhaps intended to reveal, the width of her shoulders and the slow stride, quiet and dangerous, that reminds Daeron of nothing more than the mountain lion Beleg Cúthalion once saved him from with an unbelievable shot between the eyes.

Daeron is no fool—between the mountain lion and the salt-burned, death-bitter warrior girl, he would take the tooth and claw creature every time.

-

“For the tobacco, _merci_ ,” Daeron says, leaning against a fence post and regretting the smell that will be attached to him for the rest of the day. The cigarette pinched between his fingers is all done for.

“You gave trade fair enough,” Wister replies. He is sitting on an upturned bucket, dusty red kerchief loosened around his throat, a half-empty porcelain mug grasped in his thick hands. He must have washed with the rest of Haleth’s people when they arrived yesterday, but he is a hard and constant worker, and already it looks as though half of California’s dirt is encrusted in the lines of his knuckles and underneath his short nails.

Wister does not reveal much—says little enough—but Daeron gathers a good impression of several of the former thralls from him, and an ill impression of several unnamed individuals living in the fort called Mithrim.

Daeron remembers a hostile shadow, and being cursed at for speaking French. “ _Quelle suprise_ ,” he says.

Wister mentions no one by name of Beren, nor anyone fitting the description of the sneaking, presumptive _plouc lâche_.

Daeron scuffs the dirt with his boot and buries his cigarette in a shallow grave.

He cannot count on other things being dead.

-

It is a shame that Haleth has few women in her employ—Ames is not one to be flattered into volubility.

-

There is a curly-headed boy now, one of the former thralls, whose skin is shadow-inked like that of Beleg’s. He is never to be seen unless he is prowling patched elbow to patched elbow with a pale fellow of his similar age and lesser height. Both are growing out of their trousers.

They whisper between themselves, at turns somber and smiling, and carry out whatever work they are assigned without complaint.

It is like watching Beleg and Mablung if they were scarce done their growing season, and Daeron is not the only one amused at such a thought.

“Silas and Henrik,” he is told.

He stumbles into them one evening, and invites them to the kitchens, to share in some fresh made pies.

They—politely—turn him down.

He brings them a slice each, and earns a clipped and scattered story in reply.

By now, Thingol’s questions are mostly answered.

His own question festers in his heart, a feverish disease.

The more he thinks of Luthien and the soft mystery of her dark tresses and tender breast, the longer the Beren boy is vanished without word or bullet wound, the deeper the worm of anxiety digs and bites and consumes.

Thus, he turns fool, but only as far as one who believes himself clever can.

-

Melian does not open her eyes even when the last notes of violin song melt into the air like snowflakes on warm skin.

Daeron gazes upon the mesa oak for a while, then turns and feigns surprise at the sight of his master’s lady.

(Someday, he may be nearer to her than this.)

“Forgive me, Madame,” he says, bowing a little at the neck. He speaks in English with her—Spanish if Thingol is present—since she does not know French, and he is ignorant of the tongue of her homeland. “I did not realize you were present.”

Melian looks upon him now and, shifting the material on her lap, gracefully chooses a loop of jacaranda-purple embroidery silk and prepares her needle.

“Your music smooths the stone of worry as though it were a long-running stream,” she says. “This is no trouble to my peace.”

Daeron, walking a narrow path along a cliffside, leans away from safety and ventures a foot over a nothingness that might have no nadir.

“Thank you,” he says to Melian, “for your kind words. But if I may be so bold, I fear I myself am troubled—does Luthien not seem strange these past few days? She picks at her food, and spends more time walking the grounds than at your side or her usual little pastimes. As though she were suffering from—faint illness, or low spirits?”

Daeron clings to the neck of his violin as though it were a thick root to save him from falling. His distress is real, but double-sided.

His face, he knows, bears nothing but the most innocent of concern. If Melian is aware of anything, has heard anything, or if she gives permission for him to pry into Luthien’s possible secrets...

Melian thanks him calmly, and denies him everything.

“Luthien’s spirit rises and falls as naturally as does the light of day, and though she has been touched by the plight of the former thralls, the grief of kindness will not overpower her. You need not worry for her now, or indeed ever. Yet I thank you for your love for her as friend and teacher.”

Daeron must subside in the face of such a response, and he might now leave, except all of a moment, like a small boy worried that his shameful lies will be discovered by a mother, he fears Melian’s discerning mind might understand him too well.

He sets bow to string once again, then, and plays one of his own melodies to conceal the bend of his thought. Then he plays another and another, until a full hour has gone by.

While so employed, he names and settles all future guilt within his soul.

He has no other choice—for Luthien’s sake, he must intrude for the second time on her privacy.

-

Luthien, the little bird, has always let him play his preferred music, and then, in between delicate glass bell laughter and praise, she petitions for something lighter, something she can dance to. For her, Daeron condescends to playful ditties—sometimes, she rewards him with a kiss on the cheek.

Sometimes, she tells him he is too gloomy for her liking—she, who held herself over the ruin of a worthless boy and pressed her mouth to his chapped lips and let her fingers flutter over his wind-worn, weakened shoulders.

He—Beren—did not merit such rewards. He, who had offered Luthien nothing her whole life, nor was like to do more, he had no place at her side.

He would be crippled, he should be crippled, Daeron thinks, remembering the shot-through hand—but Daeron needs him dead.

He cannot bring him before Luthien in any other way.

 _La tristesse_ , Daeron whispers.

-

It is mid-afternoon. Luthien, his exquisite muse (yes, he writes music for her, from her), is off helping her mother roll some sort of special pastry in the kitchen, and her devoted attendant Isabella has retired to her room and rests in a well-carved rocking chair, head crooked awkwardly over a half-mended sleeve.

Daeron can be clumsy, when necessary, and he can also slip unnoticed through doors and past billowing white curtains. He has indeed done this already, dared to cross over into the sacred temple without escort, sullied writing desk and dark carved chest twice in the past few days.

He has no proof that Beren has sent Luthien any word since the day Thingol banished him from Doriath on pain of death—and yet he suspects.

It is a feeling wriggling and burrowing like a great slimed worm into the loose dirt he has scattered over his heart for concealment.

He shakes awfully, then overturns pillow and bed linens, searches under the mattress, and thumbs through books. He looks in places where not even the lowest of Thingol’s hands would venture.

In frustration, Daeron buries his nose in a vase of citrus and vanilla scented poppies, to see if a note is hidden there, but he only ends up sneezing uncontrollably into his sleeve.

In all his searching he finds—with no accompanying relief—not one letter or stray scarf. Not one thing that might be or bear a secret message.

Daeron goes to bed with a headache.


End file.
